Worker's Comp Puts City On Injured List

Chicago Payroll Haven For Accident-prone

City of Chicago water-meter reader Geraldine Waters was trying to read a back yard meter one day when she crossed paths with Ike, a 16-pound chihuahua who nipped her on the right ankle.

At the time, she didn't complain of any injury and refused offers of help from witnesses. The next day, however, she started a nine-month paid disability leave to recover from the incident. And she later collected an extra $10,222 settlement from the city for permanent damage inflicted by the jaws of Ike.

Back on the job only four months, Waters was walking through a weedy lot on the South Side when an insect bit her on the left foot. The swelling became so bad, she claimed, that she took another two weeks' paid time off to recover. Again, the city kicked in a settlement, this time $1,648 as compensation for the scar left by the bite.

Two months later, a trio of yelping pit bull puppies accosted Waters in the basement of an apartment building. The dogs never touched her--and may not have even strayed from their pen--but Waters was so startled she ran backwards and fell. The next day, she went to the hospital, complaining of a sore back.

That was in 1990, and Waters hasn't worked since. To date, the city has paid her $131,616 to compensate for lost wages on the encounter with the pit bulls and may continue to pay for months or years. Waters declined to comment. Her lawyer didn't return phone calls.

In all, the 59-year-old Waters has filed five worker's compensation cases against the city since 1980, and she is far from being the record holder. Indeed, the city payroll appears a magnet for the accident-prone, and it all seems to be within the law.

Illinois' worker's compensation law, some experts say, invites claims for wounds as frivolous as finger cuts, and it hampers attempts to monitor excesses. The Illinois system is designed "as if for the benefit of lawyers," concluded a recent study by the Worker's Compensation Research Institute in Cambridge, Mass.

That said, the system's flaws are magnified in Chicago, a haven for worker's comp chutzpah, a Tribune investigation of state and city records has found.

Turning even the most trivial injury into extra cash seems to be as entrenched a custom as getting out the vote on election day. And city officials are reluctant to challenge small claims, viewing them as nickel-and-dime nuisances more costly to contest than pay off.

Though it might seem preposterous that a bug bite or dog nip could seriously impair somebody's ability to work, it's not difficult to find a doctor who will provide a helpful diagnosis.

Chicago shells out more than twice the national average per employee in worker's compensation claims, and city workers are nearly three times more likely than other employees in Illinois to press claims with the state panel that hears worker's compensation disputes.

Fueling those phenomena, experts say, are city policies and red tape that--unlike in private industry--tie up for weeks payments for medical expenses and lost wages. Such delays often prompt workers to hire lawyers. And once lawyers get involved, the price tag on the accident almost inevitably goes up.

In 1995, just five local law firms--all with cozy ties to politicians or labor unions--handled 40 percent of cases against the city filed with the Illinois Industrial Commission, the state agency that oversees worker's comp disputes.

The big five are firms that include Salvatore Bongiorno, a former chairman of the Industrial Commission; George Cullen, who once handled worker's compensation claims for the City Council Finance Committee; former city lawyers Joseph Spingola and Martin J. Healey Jr.; and former Ald. Edward R. Vrdolyak, the council's one-time premier wheeler-dealer.

Cases such as Waters' cost the city $25 million in injury compensation in 1995, and that doesn't include injury claims paid to police and firefighters who are covered by separate systems.

About 40 percent of that amount came from lump-sum settlements to workers for permanent damage for injuries, some inconsequential and others serious. The rest largely went to cover medical expenses and lost pay when injuries kept workers off their jobs.

For all but higher-salaried workers, state law guarantees tax-free disability pay of two-thirds of an injured worker's paycheck. In Chicago, however, disability pay is set at 75 percent--again, tax free, with the additional amount coming from city pension funds.

The $25 million compensation payout breaks down to $1,136 per city worker. That is nearly 43 percent more than the $796-a-head shelled out on average by government bodies across the nation that responded to a survey by Tillinghast-Towers Perrin, a New York-based national consulting firm. When private and public industry are combined, the average compensation payout per worker dropped to $446.